The invention relates generally to explosives and particularly to explosive initiation mechanisms, specifically explosive logic networks.
In the past, explosive logic systems have been used as explosive mechanisms or in safe-and-arm devices for missiles, projectiles, or other weapon systems. Null gates are included in some systems, which function to switch off, or disrupt, a circuit. This is accomplished by breaking through the explosive material in a trail with a detonation from another intersecting trail. One type of null gate, utilizing the "corner effect" principle, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,412,493, issued Nov. 1, 1983 to Silvia. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,409, issued Oct. 30, 1973 to Menz et al describes destructive crossovers which utilize the "corner effect". However, in both of these explosive logic devices, it is difficult to assure very high reliability, approaching 100%, because of variability in the corner radius and explosive materials. In explosive logic systems which require large numbers of such null gates or destructive crossovers, these elements must have a very high reliability in order to ensure an acceptable overall system reliability.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,430,564, issued Mar. 4, 1969 to Silvia et al, discloses another type of explosive logic device wherein a point contact from an explosive trail with a constricted region of another explosive trail produces a destructive crossover, in which a detonation through the point contact of the one trail physically disrupts the constricted region of the other trail. However, explosive logic devices utilizing this principle tend to be much slower than corner base logic. Consequently, when a large number of such devices are required in an explosive logic network, their slowness can degrade system performance.